Steve Klein Weekly Update

UPDATES ARCHIVE FOR MARCH 2007

KLEINER'S KORNER FOR WEEK OF MARCH 26, 2007

This writer’s 5th & 6th grade elementary school teacher is a Kleiner’s Korner subscriber and wrote this about the global warming issue, covered here in recent weeks: “For the doubters that global warming is affecting our home in space--take a short drive on the Historical Highway A1A [Florida’s East Coast]--my former residence--observe the LACK of beach sand along the ocean--once 400-feet-wide beaches are now maybe 20 feet in some areas--and NO sand at high tide---in many other areas--along Flagler beach--huge boulders of granite have been dumped along the shore to prevent the ocean from washing away the highway---Complacency is one of the greatest characteristics of the average citizen in this country--Overpopulation is causing the problem---The heat-up of the ocean is causing a mess in Nature and the naturals are being affected--Nature tries to preserve---humans destroy—
Lois Leeth, Virginia.” Thanks for sharing your observations, Mrs. Leeth!

1. "HIGGS BOSON: GLIMPSES OF THE GOD PARTICLE" "On 9 December last year, as John Conway looked at the results of his experiment, a chill ran down his neck. For 20 years he has been searching for one of the most elusive things in the universe, the Higgs boson - aka the God particle - which gives everything in the cosmos its mass. And here, buried in the debris generated by the world's largest particle smasher, were a few tantalising hints of its existence. Conway first revealed the news of his experiment earlier this year in a blog. Experimental particle physicists are skeptics by nature, loath to claim the discovery of any new particle, let alone a particle of the Higgs's stature, and in his blog Conway dismissed hints of its existence as an aberration, just as many other supposed signs of the elusive particle have proved to be after closer examination. The tiny blips in Conway's data have so far simply refused to go away. What's more, using data made public last week in a second blog, another team of researchers has independently seen hints of a new particle with similar mass. Both results may yet be dismissed, but the coincidence is striking, and is one that is getting physicists excited. If they have found evidence of a Higgs particle, then it points towards the existence of a universe in which each and every particle we know of has a heavier "super-partner", an arrangement of the cosmos known as supersymmetry," quoting New Scientist.
link here .

2. "SUBLIMINAL IMAGES IMPACT ON BRAIN" "The brain does register subliminal images even if a person is unaware they have seen them, UK researchers report. The research, in Current Biology, suggests subliminal advertising is probably effective. The practice, which was first used in the 1950s, has been banned in the UK, but is still permitted in the US. Using brain scans, a team from University College, London, showed people only registered the images if the brain had "spare capacity"… The researchers cite the example of the film Fight Club, where a character who works as a cinema projectionist inserts a single frame of pornography into the 24 frames of a film shown each second. In the movie, those watching were unaware of the split-second shot, but felt depressed or aggressive afterwards. Although it has long been thought that subliminal images can be detected without people being aware of them, and have been used in techniques such as subliminal advertising, this is the first time researchers have provided physiological evidence of the impact," quoting the BBC.
link here .

3. WHY IS THE MIND WIRED TO WANDER EVERY CHANCE IT GETS?” “Researchers are studying a pervasive psychological phenomenon in which – Oh, man, we’ve got to finish doing the taxes this weekend ...C’mon, admit it. Your train of thought has derailed like that many times. It’s just mind-wandering. We all do it, and surprisingly often, whether we’re struggling to avoid it or not. Mainstream psychology hasn’t paid much attention to this common mental habit. But a spate of new studies is chipping away at its mysteries and scientists say the topic is beginning to gain visibility...Michael Kane, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, sampled the thoughts of students at eight random times a day for a week. He found that on average, they were not thinking about what they were doing 30 percent of the time. For some students it was between 80 and 90 percent of the time. Out of the 126 participants, only one denied any mind-wandering at the sampled moments. Prior work has also turned up average rates of 30 percent to 40 percent in everyday life,” quoting the AP. link here .

4. “WOMAN AWAKENS FOR 3 DAYS AFTER 6 YEARS” “A woman who went into a vegetative state more than six years ago awoke this week [March 8] for three days and spoke with her family and a local television station before slipping back....Her neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, said he couldn’t explain how or why she awoke. ‘I’m just not able to explain this on the basis of what we know about persistent vegetative states,’ he said. A vegetative state is much like a coma except Lilly’s eyes remain open. Bjork said that he’s never seen a similar quality of awakening," quoting the AP on MSNBC. link here .

5. "STUDY PINPOINTS AREA LINKED TO EMOTIONALLY TOUGH MORAL JUDGEMENTS" "Scientists may have pinpointed the area in the brain where morality and emotions clash in dicey situations. The area is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), report the researchers. Michael Koenigs, PhD, of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, worked on the study while on staff in the neurology division of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics...," quoting WebMD on CBS News. link here .

6. “PHOTONS TRAPPED FOR RECORD TIME” “In 1927, Albert Einstein conceived of a box in which light was trapped and a single light particle, or photon, was released in a theoretical experiment to measure the relationship between mass and energy. Eighty years on, French physicists say they have created Einstein's box: a device just 1.1 inches big that snares a photon, enabling it to be monitored from birth to death.
Photons are arguably the ultimate existential particle in physics. By switching on a light bulb, you release a million billion photons every second. But as soon as you see a photon, it dies, for its contact with the retina expends the energy that made it exist,” quoting AFP. link here .

7. "FRANCE OPENS SECRET UFO FILES COVERING 50 YEARS" "France became the first country to open its files on UFOs Thursday [Mar. 22] when the national space agency unveiled a website documenting more than 1,600 sightings spanning five decades. The online archives, which will be updated as new cases are reported, catalogues in minute detail cases ranging from the easily dismissed to a handful that continue to perplex even hard-nosed scientists," quoting the AFP. link here
"The website itself -- which crashed host servers hours after it was unveiled due to heavy traffic -- is extremely well organized and complete, even including scanned copies of police reports." Visit the website at: link here .

8. AUTO NEWS A. “CARS THAT MAKE HYBRIDS LOOK LIKE GAS GUZZLERS” "Toyota Prius owners tend to be a proud lot since they drive the fuel-efficient hybrid gas-electric car that's the darling of mainstream environmentalists and one of the hottest-selling vehicles in America. A few, however, felt that good was not good enough. They've made "improvements" even though the modifications voided parts of their warranties... Why? Five words: one hundred miles per gallon. ‘We took the hybrid car to its logical conclusion,’ Kramer says, by adding more batteries and the ability to recharge by plugging into a regular electrical socket at night, making the car a plug-in hybrid. Compared with the Prius' fuel efficiency of 50 mpg, plug-in hybrids use half as much gasoline by running more on cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity. If owners forget to plug in overnight, it's no big deal -- the car runs like a regular hybrid.
These trendsetters monkeyed with the car for more than their own benefit. They did it to make a point: If they could make a plug-in hybrid, the major car companies could, too. And should. Kramer, Gremban and a cadre of volunteers formed the California Cars Initiative (online at calcars.org), and in 2004 converted Gremban's Prius to a plug-in hybrid in his garage. They added inexpensive lead-acid batteries and some innovative software to fool the car's computerized controls into using more of the energy stored in the batteries, giving the car over 100 mpg in local driving and 50 to 80 mpg on the highway. The cost of conversion is about $5,000 for a do-it-yourselfer, quoting the SF Chronicle. link here
B. HAVE YOU SEEN THE AIR CAR? Check this out on You Tube:
link here
C. THE RACE TO 100 MPG" "Over the past several decades, the promise of the "car of tomorrow" has remained unfulfilled, while the problems it was supposed to solve have only intensified....Yet hope is coming faster than that hydrogen economy you've been hearing about. Several small companies are developing new engine technologies and advanced automotive designs that promise to deliver 100 miles from a single gallon of gas. The proposals run from the simple -- reduce weight, improve aerodynamics -- to the incredible (one company wants to borrow a few tricks from jet engines). The race should heat up further when the X Prize Foundation -- the group that kick-started the space-tourism industry with its $10 million competition to produce a reusable private spacecraft -- announces in the next few months a competition for the first car to break 100 mpg and sell a yet-to-be-decided number of units. The prize money hadn't been finalized at press time, but X Prize officials are discussing figures in the $25 million range as an appropriate incentive. They hope the prize will urge people to completely reconsider what a car should look like and how it should function," quoting Popular Science. link here
D. "THE CAR OF TOMORROW IS HERE TODAY" "This is the car the automakers refuse to make...I recently designed a "virtual" vehicle that combines a number of pollution-cutting technologies under one hood. Our blueprint, which we call the Vanguard, is not a hybrid. It doesn't use fuel cells. It merely puts together conventional off-the-shelf technologies that can already be found piecemeal in more than 100 vehicles on the road today. Installing these technologies in everything from two-seaters to SUVs could cut their global-warming pollution by as much as 40 percent," quoting the San Francisco Chronicle.
link here .

9. “ACTIVITY DISCOVERED AT YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLCANO” “One of the largest supervolcanoes in the world lies beneath Yellowstone National Park and scientists say activity there is increasing. Though the Yellowstone system, which spans parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, is active and expected to eventually blow its top, scientists don’t think it will erupt any time soon. Supervolcanoes can sleep for centuries or millennia before producing incredibly massive eruptions that can drop ash across an entire continent. Yet significant activity continues beneath the surface. And the activity has been increasing lately, scientists have discovered. In addition, the nearby Teton Range, in a total surprise, is getting shorter. The findings, reported this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Solid Earth, suggest that a slow and gradual movement caused by a giant hotspot of molten rock beneath a volcano can shape a landscape more than sudden ground movements caused by the volcano’s frequent earthquakes,” quoting LiveScience. link here .

10. “SUMERIAN ORIGIN OF HUMANS” “Do you believe that humanity could have sprung from ancient astronauts? Is it possible that ancient Sumerian tablets clearly contain an illustration of our solar system? Is there even the slightest possibility that Stargate was based on a true story? Evidence of a civilization ruled by emissaries from another world are revealed in the ancient tablets of man. Historian and Archeologist Zecharia Sitchen uncovers the lost and hidden archives of the Annunaki: Extra-planetary visitors who over 6,000 years ago inspired what is thought to be the earliest civilization known to man; Sumeria. From the sacred stone tablets of this culture, many of the teachings of the earliest inventors, philosophers, and biblical scholars once thought mythical, are now known to be true. Where did these Annunaki come from? Sitchen says and NASA scientists concur, that there may be a mysterious 10th member to our solar system: The planet the Sumerians called, Nibiru,” quoting this fascinating video on Google. link here .

11. “VAST STORES OF WATER ICE FOUND ON MARS” "Mars is unlikely to sport beachfront property anytime soon, but the planet has enough water ice at its south pole to blanket the entire planet in more than 30 feet of water if everything thawed out," quoting Space.com. link here .

12. INTRODUCING: “THE GOD MOVIE” “In this trailer for the movie The God Who Wasn't There, author Sam Harris (Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith) warns about the dangers to society that religious faith may pose. The DVD includes much more of Sam Harris in the full documentary, in the extended interviews section and on a special audio commentary track. The Los Angeles Times calls this remarkable documentary provocative -- to put it mildly,’” quoting The God Movie DVD site. link here .

RAMTHA STUDENTS NEWS A. "One – On – One Questions & Answers with Ramtha" in Yelm, WA. April 5th & 6th evenings and all day Saturday, April 7th. $600 for all current students, usual discounts apply. Don't misst his landmark event: link here
B. Master's Fund "I have asked for them [Fred and Sherrie Loertscher] to evolve that which is termed a trust account. I have asked and will ask for every master to contribute to that which is termed five of your dollars to this account. And it is the account of the masters. And it is to help illiteracy and hunger and catastrophic disease of those people that you love. And to those who cannot, there will be a reserve made for them." -- Ramtha
Fred and Sherrie Loertscher are the masters who were asked by Ramtha to over see this Trust Fund. The Master's Fund is a nonprofit organization and your contributions are tax deductible. Send tax-deductible contributions to: The Master's Fund P.O. Box 1217 Tenino, WA 98589 (360) 264-6650
link here
C. Introducing Mona Soyoc This is the beautiful singer from France who sang her composed song at Blue College:
link here Here is Ms. Soyoc’s website: link here .

LOCAL NOTES Covered last week on the Yelm Community Blog hosted by Steve Klein: A. Yelm Mayor says growth required to fund road and other projects. HUH? B. Wilcox Farms milk to be free from clones. C. Rainier project included in Capital Budget. D. City of Yelm has many open citizen committee positions. E. Gov. Gregoire receives award for appointment of women. F. See picture of local Democratic candidate Jean Marie Christenson with Gov. Gregoire.
link here .

QUOTE OF THE WEEK "Fear is rarely the motivation for action, but almost always the reason for denial." Greg Simmons (1945- ) Appointed Teacher of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment from his Physics of Change Newsletter March, 2007 edition .

Kleiner’s Korner is copyrighted by Stephen R. Klein, 2007. For archived issues of Kleiner’s Korner, click on "Current Kleiner’s Korner and Archives" at link here Send comments to steve@kleinerskorner.com .

Kleiner's Korner For Week of March 19, 2007

Happy Spring to those of you in the Northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere residents can enjoy the wonderful days of autumn. The Spring Equinox in Yelm WA is at 5:07pm PDT on Tuesday, March 20th: link here
March 20 is the official Earth Day: link here

1. From Kleiner's Korner publisher Steve Klein:
I received a handful of emails suggesting I provide "the truth" about global warming being "An Inconvenient Truth" based on politics. To present balance then, for those that subscribe to the theory the CO2 increase is not caused by human influence comes this:
"According to a group of scientists brought together by documentary-maker Martin Durkin, if the planet is heating up, it isn't your fault and and there's nothing you can do about it. We've almost begun to take it for granted that climate change is a man-made phenomenon. But just as the environmental lobby think they've got our attention, a group of naysayers have emerged to slay the whole premise of global warming," quoting this You Tube link on Google.
link here
Others wrote to say that continual global warming coverage adds to the collective consciousness perpetuating that very thing. To those that have that view, I quote author Greg Simmons' answer on that from his newletter, the Physics of Change, which sums up this writer's views exactly:
Question- "If people around the world begin to prepare themselves, won't their thoughts be on lack and fear, and does this not help to bring about the cataclysm? Answer- What is so interesting about this question is that the U.S. government has already admitted that it has underground shelters to protect its National Security. What do they know that most people do not know?
The suggestion to be prepared came from a conqueror. Ramtha defeated two-thirds of the known world. This is not done without detailed preparation. He has told his audiences that he would study his enemy for up to six years in order to know everything about them. When he prepared his final strategy, it was flawless.
Fear is rarely the motivation for action, but almost always the reason for denial. Those who are prepared for potential outcomes are calm and secure. The world is going into chaos. Those who are unprepared will likely perish. The electrical power was out this winter for a few days in my area. There were fist fights in the local gas lines because it was taking so long for people to get gas. Imagine what will happen when food and water are not available.
If you follow the understanding of the effects of global warming and the ice caps dumping millions of tons of fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean, and how this will affect the ocean currents and the ocean temperatures, you might draw the conclusion that Northern Europe will be in a deep freeze within a decade. If this scenario unfolds as it is predicted, you will have people starving at an alarming rate on every continent.
When you are prepared for such scenarios, you do not add to the silent hysteria of those in denial or the outright fear of those who are already frozen in their minds." link here

Of course, regardless of the cause of global warming, this story out this week should underscore that major changes are afoot on Terra! WARMEST WINTER ON RECORD "This winter was the warmest on record worldwide, the U.S. government said Thursday [Mar. 15] in the latest worrisome report focusing on changing climate....record keeping began in 1880," quoting MSNBC. link here
SCIENTISTS AGREE EARTH'S WARMING CAUSED BY HUMAN ACTIVITY A group of over 1,000 of the world's scientists, who rarely agree in such large numbers about anything, agree Earth's warming is "very likey" caused by human activity.
link here The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website: link here .

2. WHAT IF... "THE BRAIN CAN REALLY CREATE PHYSICAL REALITY" "Biologists and other scientists have long expressed amusement, and gritted their teeth, when they encounter the persistent contention by particle physicists that they alone pursue science in its most pure state. "Particle physics is the most fundamental area of science in that its goal is to reduce the wonderful diversity and complexity of our universe to a few simple mathematical laws," wrote the noted physicists Sylvester James Gates, Jr. and Warren Siegel, two decades ago, expressing a truism often shared by those in their discipline...But maybe the physicists have it backwards, suggests one well-known biologist, embryonic stem cell scientist Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology, writing in the current issue of /The American Scholar/, a quarterly brought to you by the folks at Phi Beta Kappa. Maybe the world is the product of one aspect of biology, the mind, and not the other way around, he argues. 'As we have seen, the world appears to be designed for life not just at the microscopic scale of the atom, but at the level of the universe itself,' Lanza writes. What if, Lanza asks, this means that instead of infinitesimally tiny particles creating space and time (and making life possible), 'the brain can really create physical reality,'" quoting USA Today. link here .

3. STUDY:"WHETHER IN MICE OR MEN, ALL CELLS AGE THE SAME" “We can dye gray hair, lift sagging skin or boost lost hearing, but no visit to the day spa would be able to hide a newly discovered genetic marker for the toll that time takes on our cells. ‘We’ve found something that is at the core of aging,’ said Stuart Kim, PhD, professor of developmental biology and of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In a study published in the July 21 issue of Public Library of Science-Genetics, Kim and colleagues report finding a group of genes that are consistently less active in older animals across a variety of species. The activity of these genes proved to be a consistent indicator of how far a cell had progressed toward its eventual demise... is new study suggests that the cell has a molecular homeowner that keeps up repairs until a predetermined time, when the owner picks up the welcome mat and moves out. Once that process kicks off, the decay happens as a matter of course. The homeowners in tortoise cells stick around for hundreds of years delaying the decay, while those in fly cells move out within weeks. Although Kim’s work doesn’t identify what triggers that process, it does provide a way of detecting the point a cell has reached in its life span," quoting Stanford School of Medicine. link here .

4. “A LAUGH A DAY MAY KEEP DEATH FURTHER AWAY” “Adults who have a sense of humor outlive those who don't find life funny, and the survival edge is particularly large for people with cancer, says Sven Svebak of the medical school at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He released his study of about 54,000 Norwegians, tracked for seven years, at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting here [Budapest, Hungary]...The greater a role humor played in their lives, the greater their chances of surviving the seven years, Svebak says. Adults who scored in the top one-quarter for humor appreciation were 35% more likely to be alive than those in the bottom quarter, he says. He took into account health, age, sex, lifestyle and other things that could affect survival,” quoting USA Today. link here .

5. “SCIENTISTS TRY TO PREDICT INTENTIONS” “At a laboratory in Germany, volunteers slide into a donut-shaped MRI machine and perform simple tasks, such as deciding whether to add or subtract two numbers, or choosing which of two buttons to press. They have no inkling that scientists in the next room are trying to read their minds — using a brain scan to figure out their intention before it is turned into action. In the past, scientists had been able to detect decisions about making physical movements before those movements appeared. But researchers at Berlin's Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience claim they have now, for the first time, identified people's decisions about how they would later do a high-level mental activity — in this case, adding versus subtracting, quoting the AP. link here .

6. FOLLOW-UP: SEE THIS REMARKABLE REGENERATION OF A FINGER “On August 9, 2005, at the end of a training session with a mustang, Tony’s finger was bitten off. He was rushed to the hospital where they cleaned it up, gave him some morphine and sent him to Indianapolis to a hand specialist. The hand specialist took pictures and gave him two alternatives. They could sew it up or let it heal as an open wound. They removed part of the bone from the tip that was sticking out and decided to leave it open and let it heal itself. Tony was in the middle of some Stem Cell research and decided that he was the best candidate for the research, because he could articulate the recovery, and verbalize the changes better than an animal. He followed the protocol set up for the horses and made a topical paste for the finger. He followed the protocol for three weeks and the results are represented below. "Neurologically intact tissue in thirty-two days". The Attending Physician was David Lukens MD , additional witnesses to the injury and recovery are Annetta Gosewehr RN and the entire research staff and volunteers at APC. But like the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so do yourself a favor and see for yourself. You'll see a series of seven photos which the progression from bloody stump to complete finger, including the fingernail,” quoting Indiana Horse Rescue. link here .

7. "FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS FIRST-EVER MORATORIUM ON SALE OF GENETICALLY ALTERED SEED" "A Federal judge ruled today [Mar. 12] that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) 2005 approval of genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa is vacated and ordered an immediate halt to sales of the GE seed. The ruling follows a hearing last week in the case brought by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for approving GE alfalfa without conducting the required Environmental Impact Statement...Monsanto and Forage Genetics, the developers of the GE alfalfa seed, argued against the injunction. But while Monsanto and its allies claimed that delaying the sale or planting of their GE seed would harm farmers, the judge found otherwise. 'Disappointment in the delay to their switch to Roundup Ready alfalfa is not an interest which outweighs the potential environmental harm...' posed by the GE crop, he wrote. Today's decision is consistent with Judge Breyer's ruling of February 13th, in which Judge Breyer found that the USDA failed to address concerns that Roundup Ready alfalfa will contaminate conventional and organic alfalfa," quoting Center for Food Safety. link here .

8. “BRIGHT NIGHTS DIM SURVIVAL CHANCES” “At a conference here [Washington, D. C. ] yesterday [Feb. 21], researchers reported that even low levels of light from incandescent, fluorescent, or other humanmade sources can befuddle creatures that require a period of nighttime darkness. The findings add to the evidence that artificial lighting is interfering with the development, reproduction, and survival of species across the taxonomic spectrum. All animals--from one-celled critters to humans--produce melatonin, a hormone that regulates cell metabolism, protects against the formation of cancerous tumors in larger animals, and allows many mammals and humans to enjoy restful sleep. But the hormone accumulates most efficiently in recurring or total darkness, such as in regular day-night cycles. When those cycles are disrupted, so is melatonin production. On the behavioral side, even seeing artificial illumination--such as street lights or indoor lamps shining through windows--at night can throw off foraging and migration in many species,” quoting Science Magazine. link here .

9. “MISSION TO STUDY EARTH’S GAPING ‘OPEN WOUND’” "A team of scientists will embark on a voyage next week [March 8] to study an “open wound” on the Atlantic seafloor where the Earth’s deep interior lies exposed without any crust covering. The lesion is located mid-way between the Cape Verdes Islands and the Caribbean in the Atlantic Ocean. It lies nearly 2 miles beneath the ocean surface and extends over thousands of square kilometers. ‘It’s quite a substantial area,’ said Chris MacLeod, a marine geologist at Cardiff University in the UK, who will be part of the expedition,” quoting Live Science. link here .

10. “HUGE ‘OCEAN’ DISCOVERED INSIDE EARTH” “Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle. The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union,” quoting LiveScience. link here .

11. "FORESTS STILL SHRINKING, BUT NOT AS FAST" "An area of forest twice the size of Paris disappears every day although the rate of global deforestation has started to slow, according to a United Nations report issued on Tuesday [March 13]. "Deforestation continues at an unacceptable rate" of about 32 million acres a year, said Wulf Killmann, a forestry expert at the Food and Agriculture Organization, which published the report..."Deforestation continues at an unacceptable rate" of about 32 million acres a year, said Wulf Killmann, a forestry expert at the Food and Agriculture Organization, which published the report...The United States reported an annual increase in forest area of 0.12 in the 1990s and 0.05 percent from 2000 to 2005," quoting MSNBC. link here The UN briefing on this report: link here .

12. GOLD AND THE DOLLAR IN THE NEWS A. AN INTERESTING STUDY OF WORLD GOLD PRICES “While it is almost a year old, a study of the enduring importance of gold in the world economic system by R. Peter W. Millar, founder of Valu-Trac Investment Research Ltd. in Scotland ( link here ), seems ever more compelling, and Millar graciously has agreed to let it be shared with you. Millar stresses the periodic upward revaluation of gold as the mechanism for defeating a deflationary debt depression at the end of an economic cycle,” quoting the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA). link here Check out Live Gold prices: link here
B. “The Condition of the Dollar” By Lindsey Williams
link here .

RAMTHA STUDENTS NEWS RSE's e-Newsletter, which has now gone to a monthly edition from quarterly, has just published the March, 2007 issue which is packed with information about Ramtha's predictions on UFOs, Children's School of Excellence (CSE) Award winners, JZ Knight's upcoming public speaking engagements, and highlights items from the Quantum Cafe online bookstore! link here .

LOCAL NOTES Covered last week on Yelm’s Community Blog A. SE Thurston Fire Levy vote on May 15th B. Introducing new website hosted by geo-engineer Ed Wiltsie C. Rep. Tom Campbell to hold Town Hall Meeting D. Rupert Sheldrake & Bruce Lipton coming to Seattle E. Wise counsel if you’re stopped for a ticket F. Filmmaker Betsy Chasse, author Gary Craig and musical guest coming to Olympia G. Dr. Stephen Hawking and Dr. Brian Greene coming to Seattle H. Washington House Bill addresses RFID concerns I. Puyallup's South Hill examines gridlock's affect on local businesses - Is Yelm next?
link here .

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “Everybody talks about wanting to change things and help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that's a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect. Rob Reiner (1947- ) American actor, director, producer & writer .

Kleiner’s Korner is copyrighted by Stephen R. Klein, 2007. For archived issues of Kleiner’s Korner, click on "Current Kleiner’s Korner and Archives" at link here Send comments to steve@kleinerskorner.com .

Kleiner's Korner For Week of March 12, 2007

Dear Readers,

This week’s Kleiner’s Korner is devoted to several stories in the news in recent days about global warming and its affects. Many readers will call this doom & gloom. Others have written to say this issue is polically motivated. With that said, the world's scientists are united in a chorus about this issue in a way rarely seen previously.

"The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won’t have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium. At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press. Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive... The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] focuses on global warming’s effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials. But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change when it’s issued in early April in Brussels, the same city where European Union leaders agreed this past week to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Their plan will be presented to President Bush and other world leaders at a summit in June," quoting the AP. link here
The IPCC website: link here

1. “MAN WHO LOST 3 KIDS TO TSUNAMI GETS TRIPLETS” “Darmi Ali lost his three daughters and wife to the 2004 tsunami. The 44-year-old remarried, and last week became a father again — of triplets, all of them female," quoting the AP. link here .

2. OFFICALS WEIGH IN ON GLOBAL WARMING A. “WARMING AS DANGEROUS AS WAR, U. N. CHIEF SAYS “Human-induced global warming poses as much danger to the world as war, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday [Mar. 1] as he urged the United States to take the lead in the fight against global warming. In his first address on the subject at the U.N. General Assembly hall, Ban said he would emphasize the climate crisis with the leaders at a June meeting in Germany of the Group of Eight industrialized nations — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, the United States, and Russia,” quoting MSNBC . link here
B. “CLIMATE OF HOPE – US CITIES LEAD THE WAY” “Seattle mayor Greg Nickels is hopeful that the US will soon join the global effort to tackle climate change. Building on comments he made in the BBC News website's Have Your Say pages, Mr Nickels says more than 400 US mayors are committed to curbing emissions - something the White House has so far refused to do,” quoting the BBC. link here
C. CA. GOVERNOR SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH 4 WESTERN STATES TO CURB GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS “California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday [Feb. 26] signed an agreement with four western US states to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the latest step in his drive against climate change. Schwarzenegger has inked a memorandum of understanding to create a joint strategy with Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to combat global warming, a statement released by his office said. Speaking at the National Governors Association in Washington, Schwarzenegger also called on other states to follow California's lead and set a low carbon fuel standards,” quoting AFP. link here .

3. ASIAN AIR POLLUTION AFFECTING WEST COAST WEATHER "Asia's growing air pollution - billowing plumes of soot, smog and wood smoke - is making the Pacific region cloudier and stormier, disrupting winter weather patterns along the West Coast and into the Arctic, researchers reported Monday [Mar. 5]. Carried on prevailing winds, the industrial outpouring of dust, sulfur, carbon grit and trace metals from booming Asian economies is having an intercontinental cloud-seeding effect, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study is the first large-scale analysis to draw a link between Asian air pollution and the changing Pacific weather patterns. 'The pollution transported from Asia makes storms stronger and deeper and more energetic,' said lead author Renyi Zhang at Texas A&M University. 'It is a direct link from large-scale storm systems to [human-produced] pollution.' Satellite measurements reveal that high-altitude storm clouds over the northern Pacific have increased up to 50% over the last 20 years as new factories, vehicles and power plants in China and India spew growing amounts of microscopic pollutant particles into the air," quoting the LA Times.
link here .

4. GLOBAL WARMING HAPPENING FASTER THAN THOUGHT A. “WARNING ON WARMING” “Bill McKibben writes, ‘If world leaders had heeded the early warnings of the first IPCC report, and by [the year] 2000 had done the very hard work to keep greenhouse gas emissions from growing any higher, the expected temperature increase would be half as much as is expected now. In the words of the experts at realclimate.org, where the most useful analyses of the new assessment can be found, climate change is a problem with a very high 'procrastination penalty', a penalty that just grows and grows with each passing year of inaction,’" quoting TomDispatch. link here
B. “CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT MORE EXTENSIVE THAN THOUGHT” “Global climate change is happening faster than previously believed and its impact is worse than expected, information from an as-yet unpublished draft of the long-awaited second part of a United Nations report obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE reveals. No region of the planet will be spared and some will be hit especially hard. Is the world's weather already out of control? Is the pollution of the past decades having an impact on the present? That's exactly what the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change fears: Human influences over the last 30 years "have had a recognizable effect on many physical and biological systems," write the authors of the as yet unreleased second part of the 2007 global climate change report. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is convinced global warming is already making the world sweat. At least that's the gist of the "Summary for Policymakers" from the group made up of hundreds of scientists,” quoting Germany’s Speigel. link here .

5. “HOW GLOBAL WARMING GOES AGAINST THE GRAIN” "The place where most of the world's people could first begin to feel the consequences of global warming may come as a surprise: in the stomach, via the supper plate. That's the view of a small but influential group of agricultural experts who are increasingly worried that global warming will trigger food shortages long before it causes better known but more distant threats, such as rising sea levels that flood coastal cities. The scale of agriculture's vulnerability to global warming was highlighted late last year when the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an umbrella organization representing 15 of the world's top crop research centres, issued an astounding estimate of the impact of climate change on a single crop, wheat, in one of the world's major breadbaskets," quoting Canada's Globe & Mail. link here .

6. “HONEYBEES VANISH, LEAVING KEEPERS IN PERIL” “David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing. In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation's most profitable. ‘I have never seen anything like it,’ Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. ‘Box after box after box are just empty. There's nobody home.’ The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. Beekeepers have fought regional bee crises before, but this is the first national affliction…As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to call "colony collapse disorder," growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis…A Cornell University study has estimated that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in the United States, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. ‘Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,’ said Zac Browning, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation,” quoting The New York Times. link here .

7. “EXOTIC ANIMALS SEEN WHERE ANTARCTIC ICE USED TO BE” “Spindly orange sea stars, fan-finned ice fish and herds of roving sea cucumbers are among the exotic creatures spied off the Antarctic coast in an area formerly covered by ice, scientists reported on Sunday [Feb. 25]. This is the first time explorers have been able to catalog wildlife where two mammoth ice shelves used to extend for some 3,900 square miles over the Weddell Sea. At least 5,000 years old, the ice shelves collapsed in two stages over the last dozen years. One crumbled 12 years ago and the other followed in 2002. Global warming is seen as the culprit behind the ice shelves' demise, said Gauthier Chapelle of the Polar Foundation in Brussels,” quoting Reuters. link here .

8. WARNINGS ABOUT FLOODING CITIES FROM SEA LEVEL RISE STARTING TO BE ECHOED A.“OFFICIAL: COASTAL LIVING RISKIER DUE TO WEATHER” “The head of the nation's weather and climate research agency says the biggest challenge facing the world is population growth and people's desire to live in coastal areas where they can be endangered by storms. ‘I believe that the population issue is huge,’ Conrad Lautenbacher said Thursday [March 1]. ‘And it's not just the U.S., there are six billion ... getting up to seven billion people on the Earth and they all want to live in coastal zones.’ Lautenbacher is head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that studies weather and climate and issues storm warnings and forecasts, among other activities,” quoting the AP. link here B. NEW YORK CITY ASKS "...HOW SAFE IS MY HOME" "With no obvious savior in the wings, there is a growing urgency that global warming be understood at a local level, right down to the block, starting with: How could a rising sea level and pummeling storms affect the trillion dollars’ worth of property New Yorkers call home? 'It’s all pointing in a bad direction,' said Stuart Gaffin, an associate research scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University. 'There’s nothing good to encourage you to think we’re going to avoid long-term flooding events,'" quoting the New York Times. link here .

9. “CLIMATE PANEL RECOMMENDS GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CEILING, CARBON TAX” “A group of 18 scientists from 11 countries is calling on the international community to act quickly to prevent catastrophic climate change. In a report requested by the United Nations and partially paid for by the privately funded U.N. Foundation, the panel warns that any delay could lead to a dangerous rise in sea levels, increasingly turbulent weather, droughts and disease. The report was issued three weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming is real and caused in large part by human activity. But unlike the IPCC report, this latest document makes policy recommendations…The panel's recommendations include a series of steps to cut the rate at which temperatures are rising. Chief among them are a global agreement on an acceptable ceiling for temperature rise and finding ways of adapting to cope with the damage already done,” quoting Voice of America News. link here .

10. “GLOBAL WARMING: ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK” “The spread of human disease has become one of the most worrisome subplots in the story of global warming. Incremental temperature changes have begun to redraw the distribution of bacteria, insects and plants, exposing new populations to diseases that they have never seen before. A report from the World Health Organization estimated that in 2000 about 154,000 deaths around the world could be attributed to disease outbreaks and other conditions sparked by climate change. The temperature change has been small, about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 150 years, but it has been enough to alter disease patterns across the globe. In Sweden, fewer winter days below 10 degrees and more summer days above 50 degrees have encouraged the northward movement of ticks, which has coincided with an increase in cases of tick-borne encephalitis since the 1980s. Researchers have found that poison ivy has grown more potent and lush because of increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In Africa, mosquitoes have been slowly inching up the slopes around Mt. Kenya, bringing malaria to high villages that had never been exposed before,” quoting the LA Times. link here .

11. “GREAT ANDEAN GLACIER ‘WILL MELT TO NOTHING BY 2012’” “The principal glacier of the world’s biggest tropical ice-cap could disappear within five years as a result of global warming, one of the world’s leading glaciologists predicted yesterday [Feb. 15]. The imminent demise of the Qori Kalis glacier, the main component of the Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes, offers the starkest evidence yet of the effects of climate change, according to Lonnie Thompson, of Ohio State University…The Quelccaya ice-cap, covering 17 square miles (44 sq km) in the Cordillera Oriental region of the Peruvian Andes, is the world’s largest tropical ice mass…Professor Thompson predicted six years ago that the celebrated snows of Kilimanjaro would be gone from Africa’s highest mountain by 2015, and he now thinks that that estimate may have been too conservative.,” quoting the UK Times San Francisco Bureau. link here .

12. FORMER CANADIAN OFFICIAL: “UFO SCIENCE KEY TO HALTING CLIMATE CHANGE” “A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday [Feb. 28]. "I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet," Paul Hellyer, 83, told the Ottawa Citizen. Alien spacecrafts would have traveled vast distances to reach Earth, and so must be equipped with advanced propulsion systems or used exceptional fuels, he told the newspaper. Such alien technologies could offer humanity alternatives to fossil fuels, he said, pointing to the enigmatic 1947 incident in Roswell, New Mexico -- which has become a shrine for UFO believers -- as an example of alien contact. ‘We need to persuade governments to come clean on what they know. Some of us suspect they know quite a lot, and it might be enough to save our planet if applied quickly enough,’ he said,” quoting the AFP. link here .

RAMTHA STUDENTS NEWS A. “On a personal note and from personal observation, JZ Knight has caught untold flack for developing and maintaining a wisdom school, for more than twenty years, based on channeling a thirty-thousand-year-old warrior by the name of Ramtha. I must go on record, however, and say that I love JZ Knight and I believe in the wisdom of Ramtha. JZ is a powerful woman who must be honored for the battles she went through to live and release her truth,” quoting Philippe Matthews on his blog. link here
B. “This month’s Herald is about the brain, changing your mind, and, in our book review section, even about changing your relationship to money,” quoting Bleeping Herald editor Cate Montana. link here
C. Part 3 of Greg Simmons' interview on Masters Connection is now available:
link here
D. "Danielle Graham, Founder and Executive Director of the NW Frontier Research Institute (NWFRI), will be presenting information she gathered during her meeting with some of China’s leading scientists at “China’s Research on Extraordinary Human Ability”. The presentation will be from 4:00 – 6:00 P.M. on Saturday, March 17th at the new Yelm High School Theater and will be filmed as part of both a promotional DVD for NWFRI and for possible use in a feature documentary," quoting her e-letter. link here .

LOCAL NOTE Covered last week on Yelm's Community Blog A. Washington State produced emergency guide B. Rep. Campbell's hospital infections bill gets Seattle Press C. Office of Drinking Water D. Record High temperature on March 6 E. Yelm Food Co-op to have new home F. Student Orchestras of greater Olympia auction G. Were Yelm Walmart construction opportunities missed? H. Housing bubble bursting I. Rainier, Vail Loop fire levy on May 15th. Please vote.
link here .

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “It's time to start living the life you've imagined.” Henry James (1843-1916) American-born author & literary critic .

Kleiner's Korner For Week of March 5, 2007

Remember that Daylight Savings Time begins when you retire this Saturday night (Sunday, March 11 at 2am), so you will set your clocks ahead one hour in most of the USA. link here

1. FOLLOW-UP: TWO PREVIOUS SPACE STORIES UPDATED A. CASSINI'S NEW PICTURES OF SATURN & RINGS The Cassini spacecraft has captured a fresh view of Saturn from high above the planet's gorgeous rings and also provided a stunning video of its travels through the ring plane. The robotic probe has climbed to higher and higher inclinations over the past several months, providing looks at the planet and rings that scientists have eagerly awaited....The new photograph shows the rings from a 40-degree angle on high. The video shows the rings as they appeared to Cassini while it sped from south to north, rapidly crossing the ring plane. When the rings are seen edge-on in the video, they disappear," quoting Space.com link here
B. PROF. HAWKING TO EXPERIENCE WEIGHTLESSNESS Renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who authored the best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time," soon will experience a brief history with weightlessness. Hawking, who uses a wheelchair and is almost completely paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, plans to go on a weightless flight on April 26, officials at the flight operator said Thursday....Zero Gravity will pick up the bill, which normally is $3,750. The company also plans to have two seats on the flight auctioned off by two charities," quoting Space.com.
link here .

2. “CHEMICAL CONTRAILS” “Across the planet, millions of people have seen them — jet aircraft vapor trails lingering in the sky. Are these just regular "contrails" — the carbon and water vapor exhaust from commercial planes — or are they potentially toxic "chemical trails" emitted intentionally as part of secret geo-engineering experiments or weather-weaponization tests? Experts and passionate observers on both sides present their best evidence — from video and photographs, satellite imagery, soil samples and military evidence. We shed light on a subject that has many people looking up for answers to disturbing questions. A team of technicians at an independent laboratory will examine the samples to finally get to the heart of the question: What is in those fuel emissions and what causes them to linger for hours and link up with one another like a ghostly blanket that seems to affect the weather and perhaps our health?” quoting Discovery Channel about their show of Feb. 22, 2007. link here
Will Thomas outlines a brief introduction of Chemtails here: link here .

3. “SCIENCE FINDING WAYS TO REGROW FINGERS” “Researchers are trying to find ways to regrow fingers — and someday even limbs — with tricks that sound like magic spells from a Harry Potter novel. There's the guy who sliced off a fingertip but grew it back after he treated the wound with an extract of pig bladder. And the scientists who grow extra arms on salamanders. And the laboratory mice with the eerie ability to heal themselves. This summer, scientists are planning to see whether the powdered pig extract can help injured soldiers regrow parts of their fingers. And a large federally funded project is trying to unlock the secrets of how some animals regrow body parts so well, with hopes of applying the the lessons to humans….One animal they're studying is the salamander, a star of the regeneration field. Chop off a salamander's arm, and it will grow back in a matter of weeks. Why? The short answer is that rather than making a scar to heal quickly, as people do, the salamander forms a mound of cells called a blastema. This is a regeneration factory: If you cut off a salamander hand and transplant the resulting blastema to the creature's back, it will grow out a hand there. David Gardiner at the University of California, Irvine, is studying the secrets of the salamander by growing extra arms on the creatures. That allows for more controlled conditions than amputating arms and trying to follow what happens, he said,” quoting the AP in USA Today. link here Dr. David Gardiner’s site: link here .

4. “BIONIC EYE RESTORES SIGHT TO THE BLIND” “A bionic eye that can restore sight to the blind should be available commercially within two years, scientists behind the revolutionary technology announced. The artificial retina has been cleared by U.S. regulators to begin trials on between 50 and 75 people suffering from two of the most common causes of blindness, opening the way for millions more to benefit from similar implants in the future. If the research progresses well, a device could be on the market early in 2009 at a likely cost of about $30,000, said Mark Humayun, Professor of Ophthalmology at the Doheny Eye Institute, part of the University of Southern California,” quoting the UK Times.
link here .

5. “BIG LAKES DEDECTED UNDER ANTARCTICA” “Lasers beamed from space have detected what researchers have long suspected: big sloshing lakes of water underneath Antarctic ice. These lakes, some stretching across hundreds of square miles, fill and drain so dramatically that the movement can be seen by a satellite looking at the icy surface of the southern continent, glaciologists reported in Thursday's editions of the journal Science [Feb. 15]. Global warming did not create these big pockets of water -- they lie beneath some 2,300 feet of compressed snow and ice, too deep to be affected by temperature changes on the surface -- but knowing how they behave is important to understanding the impact of climate change on the Antarctic ice sheet, study author Helen Fricker said by telephone,” quoting Reuters. link here And, NASA’s PowerPoint on the lakes: link here .

6. “JANUARY WAS WARMEST MONTH ON RECORD WORLDWIDE” “It may be cold comfort during a frigid February, but last month was by far the hottest January ever. The broken record was fueled by a waning El Niño and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who reported the data Thursday [Feb. 15]. Records on the planet’s temperature have been kept since 1880. Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world’s land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That didn’t just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees, which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time. link here .

7. INTRODUCING THE QUIET SUPERSONIC TRANSPORT (QSST) "If you’re ever lucky enough to fly a Quiet Supersonic Transport between New York and Los Angeles, you’ll have just enough time to get through a movie—a short one. Instead of the usual six hours, it will be a 1,100mph, two-hour hop. The QSST, as the proposed luxury private jet is known, could be the first civilian supersonic plane approved for overland routes, thanks to aerodynamics designed to muzzle its sonic boom. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has been developing the project for six years under a $25-million contract from Supersonic Aerospace International (SAI), founded by Michael Paulson, son of Gulfstream founder Allen Paulson. The 12-passenger QSST would fly at between 47,000 and 57,000 feet with a range of 4,600 miles (Chicago to Rome, for example), and it doesn’t need an extended runway," quoting Popular Science.
link here .

8. “STUDENTS’ VIEW OF INTELLIGENCE CAN HELP GRADES” “A new study in the scientific journal Child Development shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school. All children develop a belief about their own intelligence, according to research psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University…Dweck's latest book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, gives parents and teachers specific ways to teach the growth mindset of intelligence to children,” quoting National Public Radio (NPR). link here The journal Child Development website: link here .

9. HITACHI’S NEW RFID POWDER SOON TO BE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD! “As if the various other permutations and teensyness of RFID weren't wild enough, here comes Hitachi with its new "powder" 0.05mm x 0.05mm RFID chips. The new chips are 64 times smaller than the previous record holder, the 0.4mm x 0.4mm mu-chips, and nine times smaller than Hitachi's last year prototype, and yet still make room for a 128-bit ROM that can store a unique 38-digit ID number. The main application is likely to be anti-counterfeit, but since the previous mu-chips could be embedded into paper quite easily enough, we're fairly certain Hitachi is just doing this for bragging rights and potential pepper shaker mixups. Hitachi should have these on the market in two or three years,” quoting Engadget. link here
Here is the AP filed story on this: link here .

10. U.K., U.S. WORST PLACES FOR CHILDREN, UN STUDY SAYS “The U.K. and the U.S. are the worst places for children's quality of life and the Netherlands and Sweden are the best, according to a report on 21 industrialized countries by the United Nations Children's Fund. The UNICEF report, released today [Feb. 14], uses 40 indicators to gauge children's well-being. The study found no solid relationship between the wealth of a country and children's welfare…. Rob Williams, the chief executive officer of the Office of the Children's Commissioner, told Bloomberg Television the problem is ``severe and complex.'' While some factors might have improved, others have worsened, such as child obesity rates, Williams said. The U.S. ranks last in health and safety, with the highest rates of relative child poverty and teenage obesity, according to the report. Only 60 percent of U.S. children live with both parents, compared with 90 percent in Greece, the report said. Swedish youth are least likely to be bullied and Dutch children are most likely to report themselves satisfied with life, according to the UNICEF research,” quoting Bloomberg News. link here .

11. “PHOTOGRAPHER SPOTS RARE HEAVENLY ARC” “No, this isn't an upside-down rainbow, and the photographer hasn't faked the picture. It's an unusual phenomenon caused by sunlight shining through a thin, invisible screen of tiny ice crystals high in the sky and has nothing at all to do with the rain. Andrew G. Saffas, a Concord artist and photographer, saw the colorful arc at 3:51 p.m. on a beautiful day recently when a slight rain had fallen in the morning. He thought it was a rainbow, created by raindrops refracting sunlight the way glass prisms refract any bright beam of light. Instead, what Saffas saw was what scientists call a circumzenithal arc, according to physicist Joe Jordan, a former NASA space scientist at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, who is now director of the Sky Power Institute in Santa Cruz, which promotes solar power and other alternative fuels,” quoting the San Francisco Chronicle. link here .

12. ASTUTE OBSERVATIONS OF PRESIDENT BUSH BY CARL BERNSTEIN This writer has immense respect for Carl Bernstein, one of two Washington Post reporters who uncovered the Nixon Watergate issues that brought down his Presidency. Mr. Bernstein and his former colleague Bob Woodward have very unique perspectives with their years of gleaned wisdom. However, what makes Bernstein particularly interesting is that he has not sounded off a lot about the Bush 43 Presidency. Now he has, and his candor is most compelling:
"First, Nixon's relationship to the press was consistent with his relationship to many institutions and people. He saw himself as a victim. We now understand the psyche of Richard Nixon, that his was a self-destructive act and presidency. I think what we're talking about with the Bush administration is a far different matter in which disinformation, misinformation, and unwillingness to tell the truth - a willingness to lie both in the Oval Office, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, in the office of the vice president, the vice president himself - is something that I have never witnessed before on this scale. The lying in the Nixon White House had most often to do with covering up Watergate, with the Nixon administration's illegal activities. Here, in this presidency, there is an unwillingness to be truthful both contextually and in terms of basic facts that ought to be of great concern to people of all ideologies.... This president has a record of dishonesty and obfuscation that is Nixonian in character in its willingness to manipulate the press, to manipulate the truth. We have gone to war on the basis of misinformation, disinformation, and knowing lies from top to bottom. That is an astonishing fact. That's what this story is about: the willingness of the president and the vice president and the people around them to try to undermine people who have effectively opposed them by telling the truth," quoting Carl Bernstein in Editor & Publisher. link here .

RAMTHA STUDENT NEWS A. A fabulous interview with Greg Simmons published January 27, 2007 by Louise SaintOnge & transcribed by Bertha Rainen is now available on MastersConnection.
link here B. Part 2 of Greg's interview on Masters Connection:
link here C. “Greg Simmons (Author: These Things You Shall Do ... AND GREATER, The Physics of Change) Appointed Teacher: Ramtha School of Enlightenment” will be Philippe Matthews’ guest on Thursday, April 26, 2007. link here D. Be sure to get your own copy of Greg Simmons book:
link here .

LOCAL NOTE Covered on the Yelm Community Blog last week: A. REP. Campbell’s patient protection bill moves to House Floor B. Yelm History Project website introduced C. Groups appeal Thurston County’s Yelm Urban Growth Boundary Plan D. Tenino Man wins $4,000 on national TV show E. Rainier-based Children’s School students win State awards F. YHS grad returns as doctor to give lecture G. Local award-winning author starts blog H. Yelm Library Board of Advisors Annual Report to City I. Measure to eliminate lead wheel weights gets a big vote J. Livable Thurston presents a Forum and Social Gathering Wednesday, March 7, 2007, 5:30 pm All this accessible at: link here .

QUOTE OF THE WEEK “The art of life is to live in the present moment, and to make that moment as perfect as we can by the realization that we are the instruments and expression of God Himself.” Emmet Fox (1886-1951) American influential author & lecturer .

Kleiner’s Korner is copyrighted by Stephen R. Klein, 2007. For archived issues of Kleiner’s Korner, click on "Current Kleiner’s Korner and Archives" at link here Send comments to steve@kleinerskorner.com .